A Flutter of Fury, a Flicker of Flames - 25%

I'm sure I am in the same boat with a lot of you on this. I found that Hate Eternal's greatest works came while Jared Anderson was a part of the band. Once I was able to get passed the production on Conquering the Throne, I found the album to be enjoyable it had some really good riffs and an atmosphere that was brutal. King of All Kings was more of the same with somewhat better production and that I would say was my favourite thing Erik Rutan lent his production to. I, Monarch was a bit of a step backward but overall I found it to be a decent album now with a move to Metal Blade records and a lineup change or two we are treated for lack of a better term to "Fury and Flames" now where do I begin? I guess I'll start from the top...

The first thing I thought when I saw the title for this album was, "where is the reference to royalty?" I mean with three albums having a reference to the Monarchy in them I figured they'd keep up that theme like Morbid Angel (which Rutan was a part of) does with their album names being in alphabetical order. However, I was wrong.

Now all joking aside, the worst thing Hate Eternal has done is add a second guitar. Don't get me wrong when I found out Shaun Kelly (ex Ripping Corpse) was joining Rutan on this record I was happy because lets face it, if they were in a band before they should have some chemistry right? Well apparently not. It sounds like the amps they used were turned up way too much and they forgot to take the feedback out of the final mix. I guess that's the best way to describe it. It's all nothing but buzz. You'd think being a producer Rutan would have stepped back for a second and thought, "hey maybe we should re-record the guitar tracks because I can't hear where one guitar part ends and another begins" but obviously that wasn't the case.

The second problem I have with this album is the absence of Derek Roddy. It's fine that they found a drummer who put the effort out to learn the songs at home and normally that would be an ideal choice. Every case has an exception however, because when you listen to the record the drumming tends to sound sloppy and drown out the guitar. I just really think this drummer was not meant to do Roddy's blast beat style.

Now I really don't like bringing up musicians who have passed on especially in a negative way but, I think Jared Anderson (R.I.P.) would turn over in his gave if he was subjected to this album. I'm sorry to say something so harsh but really this album is just terrible. I mean I didn't like I, Monarch at first either but I gave it another chance and my opinion changed however, I've tried numerous times to at least tolerate Fury and Flames but, it just won't happen because this album is utterly the worst relaese to date of 2008 next to Cryptopsy's The Unspoken King.